


A King, a Honey Badger, and a Wolverine

by ImperiusRex



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Family Feels, Family Fluff, Gen, Gentle, Jean Grey - Freeform, Kurt Wagner - Freeform, Ororo Munroe - Freeform, Remy LeBeau - Freeform, Team Bonding, Team as Family, Trinary, characters with small cameos, i wish we had more gabby and namor friend dynamics in x-men red
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-23
Updated: 2019-02-23
Packaged: 2019-11-04 05:40:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17892560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImperiusRex/pseuds/ImperiusRex
Summary: Namor has guests, the X-Men Red team have made themselves at home in Atlantis but Namor can't seem to shake the youngest member. Gabby wants to be friends and Namor just wants some peace and quiet.





	A King, a Honey Badger, and a Wolverine

** A King, a Honey Badger, and a Wolverine **

 

“Hey you can talk to fish?!”

Ignoring was the best option.

“Aren’t fish your friends?”

A muscle ticked in Namor’s jaw.

“Do you feel bad eating them?”

His eye twitched.

Gabby Kinney was a surface mutant girl child who seemed to have no end to her line of questions, they ranged from what Namor was thinking of at that moment, to how much the civilian population of Atlantis consumed on a daily basis, and if there was any TV shows in Atlantis that she could watch since it was boring being in the middle of the ocean.

“There are only so many times I can watch the fish float by,” Gabby’s dark haired head was lowered as she scribbled her questions in a notebook. Looking up her bright eyes focused on him as he sat on his throne, one hand cradling his head as he pretended not to notice her staring. Her silence was unnerving after the last half an hour of non-stop questioning. Namor tried not to but in the end his own curiosity defeated him, he glanced at her and she smiled before posing her pen above the paper and waited expectantly as if she expected him to answer every question about his life and people.

 “ _Tch_.”

His small grunt of annoyance was all she received but it didn’t bring her smile down.

“You do that often. Does making small noises feel better than talking?”

“… yes.”

With that Namor stood up and left the throne room, as Gabby began to write out more questions for the following evening. She had been doing this for the last week that the team had been in Atlantis. Jean Grey and the others were his welcome guests but while the adults seemed content to quietly explore his palace and speak with his people, Gabby seemed to be stuck to him like a barnacle to a ship. Namor didn’t hate children; he just… didn’t know how to act around them. They were too inquisitive and often saw the truth where adults where blind.

Retiring to his room later that night, he lay down on his bed and closed his eyes, sleep never came easy to him and so it took time for him to finally be able to drift off. Even though he was a light sleeper Namor didn’t hear the soft pads of an animal’s paws, but he did feel a hot stinky breath on his face. His eyes shot open to find Jonathan the Wolverine on his bed, hovering over his face, and breathing his foul breath directly into Namor’s nose.

“GUAARRRDSS!”

Namor held Jonathan by the scruff of his neck and stalked out of his room. His annoyance was now a sharp anger as he yelled for the incompetent guards at the end of his hall, who were guilty trying to put away a game of dice; too busy gambling to pay attention to a wolverine entering Namor’s chambers.

“Is everything ok here?”

Jean’s voice came from behind him and he turned around only to have a cape from his one of guard’s uniform suddenly wrap around his waist by her telekinesis. Namor rolled his eyes at her, he was a _king_ and he slept in the nude, surfacers were so _prudish_. However he wouldn’t admit that it was fortunate she did so since a few seconds later the rest of the team spilled into the hallway. Kurt, Laura, Ororo, Nezhno, and Trinary were alert as they looked around for the danger; Gabby rubbed her sleep weary eyes as she shuffled in last.

“Jeannie is everything alright?” Kurt asked his golden eyes glowing as he took in the comical sight of Namor was a guards cape around his waist holding a struggling Jonathan.

“Its fine Kurt, everyone go back to bed, I think I can handle this one.”

“I will after Namor releases Jonathan”, Laura says with a hard look in her eye, as if daring Namor to challenge her.

Namor sneers and drops the wolverine to the ground, it’s an agile creature and the short drop did not harm him. Jonathan scrambles away from Namor, hissing as it tore off in the direction of Gabby’s room and the girl following him.

“If you need us Jean, just call.” Ororo says as she yawns, she is ready to return to bed now that she is certain there is no danger. Nezhno and Trinary exchange glances before following Ororo’s lead.

Namor grunts, “Keep that thing out of my room and there will be no more issues.”

“Keep some pants on while we’re here and there won’t be any issues as well.” Jean replies in a sugar sweet voice that didn’t hide the hard look in her eyes. She would interfere if Namor showed a hint of displeasure to Gabby. He ignores it as he returns to bed.

*****

A day later Namor is hauling Gabby out of the jaws of a shark; she insists she would have been fine, but if he hadn’t been out for a swim she would have been shark food. Namor doesn’t ask where she got the scuba suit, knowing she probably charmed a guard with her positive attitude into giving her one. It seemed there were very few people in Atlantis who could resist her. _She could charm fish into a net_. He thinks as he ignores her talking. Hauling her to the palace and drops her at her sisters feet.

“She is your responsibility.”

“Hey I can take care of myself you know!” Gabby says indignantly from where she sat on the floor.

“Tell that to the next shark you meet.”

 

*****

He swims through the deepest bowels of his palace, where the older artifacts of the past sit, sculptures of old Kings and Queens, and things too painful to look upon to be in the main halls.

Namor is unprepared to find someone else down here. He swims upon the Honey Badger tucked into a small alcove, hands wrapped around her knees and her air masked face tucked down. She glances up at the change in the current and sees Namor. Gabby turned her face away, her dark hair a curtain as it floats about her head concealing her teary eyes, and scarred face. Suddenly he felt this moment was meant to be a private one, in which the child wished to be alone, to lick her wounds in private. It was a feeling Namor knew well. How often had he retreated or let the parts of him that hurt be concealed behind the cold aura he produced? The tall Atlantean shifts awkwardly, a small movement of one foot to another, his wings, as always when he is agitated, flutters slightly. He crosses his arms. Perhaps he should leave her to her solitude. She lets out a small sniff.  Namor sighs.

“Why are you here?”

“Lost Jonathan”, she mumbles, “We were exploring and he swam off too fast… I couldn’t keep up with him and these hallways are like a maze.”

He closes his eyes a moment, it wasn’t his problem, he didn’t have to make this his quest... opening his eyes he lets out a stream of bubbles. _As always the human wins. When would he learn to leave them be?_ Now he would be stuck searching the entire palace for the pet just to spare a girl from tears.

Namor holds out his hand.

“Come along then, I have much work to do today and I can’t have your lost rodent terrorizing my guards.”

“Jonathan is not a rodent. He is a mustelidae, and it’s like a weasel but he isn’t a weasel, he’s a wolverine and I can find him myself.”

He quirks an eyebrow at her fiery tone, “Do you know just how many tunnels and pathways there are beneath the palace?”

“No.”

“I do.”

“You all think I can’t handle stuff, especially Laura. She tries to protect me, but I can, I _can_ find Jonathan.”

He gives her a half smile, she reminded him of him at that age, wanting to prove himself.

“Yes, but a little help from a King can’t hurt.”

Gabby is solemn as looks at his face, whatever she sees there it makes her put her hand into Namor’s, it was very small and was dwarfed by his larger one.

*****

They searched a while, Namor patiently letting her explore, telling her a few facts about the past. Like how Empress Rithea was the only female emperor, though there were other queens none held the vast territories or the people like she did, not even my own grandfather. Gabby asked him what his grandfather was like, if he was nice.

“He was… cold.”

She seemed to sense it wasn’t a topic up for discussion and dropped it before they made then way to another part of the castle.

“Who is that?”

Namor looks over at the statue that Gabby is standing before. He hadn’t seen it in years. He swims over to her and crosses his arms, staring at the face that resembled his own, craved in the stone.

“My mother, Princess Fen.”

Gabby looks a little bit more, tilting her head to the side, the water makes her hair move.

“I never had a mother. I’m a clone.”

“My cousin is a clone.” Thoughts of Namorita always make him sad; he presses his lips together in a tight line. She was the closest he had to a real sibling, like the little sister he never knew he wanted. Her loss was always a sharp knife in his heart; he wouldn’t go to the hall where her statue was.

“Clones are cool people; I bet your cousin was too. Laura is a clone, so that’s how I know, and my other sisters are… were too.”

“Tch.”

He doesn’t really have it in him to make words right now, he looks back at the statue of his mother and Gabby follows his gaze, they stand quietly for a moment.

“She is very pretty.”

Namor looks into the marble stone eyes and finally replies, “She was the most beautiful of all the Atlanteans… they wrote songs about her.

“That’s kinda neat, but she looks like she might have eaten sailors alive like one of those scary mermaids. Did she have a nice smile?”

Namor chuckles at her description, for Fen was very formidable, and he softens at the memory of his mother’s smile.

“She did… she was a good mother.”

Gabby smiles up at him and pats his forearm since she couldn’t reach his shoulder.

“I’m glad you had one.”

Gabby swims off, calling out for Jonathan once more. Namor takes a moment to touch the statue’s hand. He follows. They finally find the wolverine, wearing the special mask and suit made for him, trapped under an old fishnet used for ceremonial purposes. Namor hauls it off the creature, the net being far too heavy for someone without Atlantean strength, and Jonathan throws himself into Gabby’s arms, she squeals as she was bowled over.

“Oh Jonathan! You should be more careful or the next time you might find a shark.” It makes small noises, muffled by the mask as Gabby gets up, holding Jonathan in her arms she looks up at Namor as though he had brought her the greatest treasure in the sea.

“I’m glad to have a friend like you Namor. Thanks for finding him.

Namor gives her a look, friends? he liked that more than he would admit, for a man who was often so surrounded by people he didn’t have very many friends. However he is too used to being who he is to ever soften over much.

“I only did it to keep you from flooding the ocean with your tears girl. Now let us be gone.

“Gabby swims beside him and he slows enough that she keeps an easy pace. He had this strange feeling inside, like warmth and though his face was impassive as ever he felt… happy. It had been a long time since someone had called him a friend. As they make their way back to the upper levels gabby gives him a sidelong glance as her curiosity prompts her to speak.

“So you never answered my question. _Can_ you talk to fish?”

Namor sighs.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This was a prompt piece and I loved writing it. I wish we had more team dynamics in that comic.
> 
> Comments and Kudos are always appreciated!


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